The Critical Rationalist Vol. 01 No. 04 ISSN: 1393-3809 31-Dec-1996
5 The Status of Organismic Darwinism
4.5 Growth of Adaptive Complexity
(41) I hope it is clear that each of these theses, which are
collectively claimed to compose 
, makes empirical
claims that are potentially testable: each of them could,
potentially, be mistaken. Of course, actually carrying out
severe tests is difficult (to put it mildly). Popper put the
situation thus:
...Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as "industrial melanism", we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry.
(42)
Nonetheless, for the purposes of this article, I am concerned only
to show that the theory has empirical content, and does--if
accepted--solve its problem ( 
). Thus, as with the theory of
common descent, I shall now (tentatively) adopt , the theory
of Organismic Darwinism, as true.
5 The Status of Organismic Darwinism
4.5 Growth of Adaptive Complexity
The Critical Rationalist Vol. 01 No. 04 ISSN: 1393-3809 31-Dec-1996
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TCR Issue Timestamp: Tue Dec 31 17:37:08 GMT 1996